the quote is like the planning professionals, i think for a lot of cases we could go for 50 or 60 years in a lot of ways their products places like detroit. think we need to start thinking about local and ground up and restoring by people who live there. >> that's a great way to wrap things up. in just a moment will move into our second panel. we ask you to bear with us. thank you to the folks were standing in the back. i know there are a couple of extra seats. [applause] [inaudible]

[inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] >> people take their seats were ready for the next panel to begin. >> anything close for moderating the first panel in jason gracie, again grateful to all of you here and all of the people who have made this possible. i can tell you going across the country working on this there people everywhere who pop up who are conservative and interested in cities.

they have a lot of questions that have been asked for and they have a lot of good questions that were not going to ask. and, i can tell you this life i have been following urbanism is a policy area, never have i seen such a commotion is on marcmarc, 2017 when a columnist or to write in the new york times, the breakup the liberal city. we are fortunate here to have -- who has been engaging in a series of what he describes as impossible, sometimes -- but always interesting arguments truly get our political and

policy conversation going in the direction because i think everyone i've talked to has been dismayed by how even after great political disruption it has continued and stagnant tracks. so, let me read a little excerpt of it here. then we'll kick off our conversation. we have -- formally of the atlantic, and bad religion, we have been shorts with those who is national editor of the american conservative who has had a varied and distinguished career including also at the atlantic or he was literary editor. aaron, senior fellow from the manhattan institute. he also runs and in this

cosmopolitan panel is our representative -- aaron is from the town of 50 people in rule indiana. looking forward to having a robust discussion about american cities in the american quality and how they're relating to each other. so first, they propose that we should treat liberal cities the way liberals treat corporate monopolies, known as growth enhancing assets, what is trust that concentrate wealth and power and can fire against the public good. instead of trying to make them a little bit more egalitarian with

more affordable housing, we should make like teddy roosevelt and try to break them up. the reason why this was interesting to me is coming up of the selection which was so how much were population was concentrated in certain places and how much of one particular persuasion was concentrated in those places. because of the, the popular vote as you may have heard did not match the electoral vote for one of the rare times in american history. most people have decried that. but it's always struck me that that may be something with the system working. it was the connecticut compromise that put in place the electoral college in order to balance the nation against concentrated commercial wealth.

and so, let me turn to run and allow you to address these fine cityfolk and why out the city be treated like this and broken up? >> first of all, thank you so much for having me. this is a wonderful event and i am honored and flattered to be here. second let me preface all my remarks by saying, if you missed it, i think tell for having me. second let me preface basically everything i say by noting that i'm a newspaper columnists and the requirement of the job description is to make outlandish suggestions about areas in which you are generally under formed and pretended a higher level of knowledge that you could possibly have.

so, i am not an urban policy person. i've never attempted to revitalize this feedback from. and i have lived in cities for much of my life and in fact to burnish my urbanist, lived right here in this neighborhood and capitol hill for about seven or eight years we have been in semi- role connecticut for about two years. for various reasons, that has been an unsuccessful experiment i will be returning to urbanism in new haven connecticut this fall for at least a year. i'm an admirer, fan and enjoy your over urbanism in general. that being said, america's biggest cities are bad. they're bad in several different ways. that are effectively intertwined. basically one of the biggest stories in our society since the

60s and 70s has been the socioeconomic and educational sorting, where you have the increasing concentration of college graduates and people postgraduates degrees into a particular set of knowledge economy, symbolic analysts cities. mostly on the east and west coast and also run major colleges and universities in the heartland. this concentration has upside serve people would not be doing it. urban cores as i said, i like them in their wonderful places to live, they have a lot of beautiful architecture that's more attractive since lit level ranches. they bring people together who work together and play together

and go to coffee shops together. all that has an economic multiplier effect. this some sort of innovation affect and the people who do it like it. unfortunately it also means that american society is segregated by education and social capital as never before. segregated in ways that is political consequences for the democratic party can claim 48% of the vote and then discover that 48% is crammed into a geographical area that even if you undo every gerrymander he still might not get the representation that democrats feel they deserve. it gives republicans a disincentive to repeat in urban

areas which binds them to the ins and outs of urban policy. it has related effects, the effect of effectively pitting cities against cities in a certain way. i lived in connecticut and connecticut is having trouble these days because it is a state of small city. which i like small cities, i think there major companies in the young driven twentysomethings who they want to hire don't necessarily want to live in small cities when there's big once available. so what's happened especially with the departure and this is happened with connecticut suburbs as well. for instance the city of hartford was historically the

insurance capital of the united states, swear it's a beautiful city, literary traditions, but companies don't want to be based there anymore. and recently there moving their offices to new york city but it's where young people want to be and it's a place that's rich in getting richard. and they can afford the tax cuts and breaks that were vibrant companies into chelsea or wherever, where's hartford with a shrinking base of companies can afford that. that dynamic what's played out between york city and boston in connecticut and in between them has played out in certain ways in the country at large with a

great urban revival of the united states as a revival of often make a -- and not necessarily a revival of smaller cities that are places where a conservative approach to urban policy might be more likely to flourish. the final issue and i want talk about my solutions because they're all obviously crackpot ideas, the last issues these cities are population sinks. places where people don't have kids. that has implications for conservative politics because conservative politics tends to be boosted by children in various reasons. also future growth of the united states and complicated implications that i've written

about in the polarization of our politics and how we think about racial demographic change. a lot of unfortunate implications. . . >> >> i grey with all of that sort of but then you are not building those kinds of houses where people have three kids and lived there

25 years you are much more unlikely to build that urban standards based that is a good space to live by yourself for with a roommate or maybe if you squeeze said good place but it is stressful and exhausting but they are not places in the long run where if you encourage more and more people in those western world. and i basically supported to think outside the box with this urban concentration takes us on politically with the polarization politics

and toshio economically and culturally with the attacks on the rest of the country and a the life cycle. that leads me to a partial defense from the '60s. [laughter] >> speaking of that penalty for the american conservative you wrote a cover story in which you engage the patron saint and in particular, her town or little village. could you bring up that perspective to engage the effects of the city's own families? and what does

that mean for cities going forward?. >> with the last panel we heard a lot about communities in being connected with that family life. but that is really when you read jacobs what you are really getting is her lyrical application a small town village life in new york city and that is heard describing a very peculiar neighborhood that essentially was gentrifying

so in terms of the social stability of the working class with those bohemian elements that would attract those innovative knowledge workers to the city. yes they were good people. [laughter] but the problem is i hate to but i am a conservative so i always have to bring things back to economic and social relations because these communities that we love were the products of even gender reality. and then even to say

something outrageous. you cannot have that life that was described media very similar community life with suburban california but but not with that gender oasis. in with women being at home during the day. so then when the children and poor running across the street. but this is absolutely true in suburbia with that vision that is really quite enticing and when you live

in a cul-de-sac you run from yard to yard but there are women in the home minding the children. now going back to that era for that community was a product of an economic reality in since i am not an urban planner i see no solution ipc certainly those major urban centers that they are in tents workers democrats or republican in those politics in some ways are incidental but there is no way they will be havens for middle-class or

working-class life and to make things even more pessimistic if you look at charles murray what he is very eloquently describing, you could not get back to that because the working class is arguable if it could support the families and that community life like it did back then. so i think a lot of it is an exercise in nostalgia but again it is very hard for the most privileged among us but that really doesn't give us the kind of community and family life that jacobs wrote and presumably a lot

of us want to get back to. but yes everybody says they want that even in the small town that they want to walk to the store. but look at the york the most sophisticated part in the country what was that like postwar decade? it would was a dreadful monotony of shoe repair stores and restores and dry cleaners. it serve the local population guess there were son used bookstores or cafes but mostly local people these neighborhoods were very self-contained. so we can never go back there i live in a small town

in new hampshire. it is lovely and charming bed downtown has boutiques. now even with the hardware store i would love to go there above to walk downtown but i spend all my time at home depot. it has the selection and the price that i want. the is the distinction if you want to return to the small town life with a full urban neighborhood. >> see you were in a very interesting perspective to comment because you grew up in a very small town but

then you spent time in indianapolis and chicago and now you are in new york city. so then has just described how we're not going back to a previous era of misdoubt jumbo where are we going forward?. >> that is a good question. what i took away from ross's peace is the status quo is not an option. and that particular recipe that thought experiment may not be bright but with some serious considerations there are three reasons for that. that era called the triumph of this city the economic results have been terrible.

so rise of the creative class in 2002 foretold rise of these super star cities with these transit oriented neighborhoods 50 years later he has written a book called the new river crisis talking about the problems because of downsizing that followed from some of that. he didn't necessarily see all those negatives coming. barack obama was the first president since hoover to never once hit 3 percent gdp growth. and 80s and 90s job growth averaged 1.9%% per year. so that was half a percent

in with that median household deal academy mick gdp and in job growth so that is just bad results and something needs to change. so the sociologists is the leading international terrorist talking about a whole globalization that allowed factories and call centers to read the talent and the cost base could be most efficient but pointed out it is more complex to do business all over the world the and just one country so with that supply chain all over the world creating demand for the complex

financial producer services like international currency for international accounting or marketing. highly specialized skills to produce so the people who could do those with live-in chicago or new york in those global cities so the rise of new york and chicago was a result of the of globalization that was not be only factor of course, the search and the globalization played some role. people today like to think of globalization of something that just happens like a meteorite yes there

were improvements but globalization was a deliberate government choice . nafta is government policy. admitting china to the wto was government action government has been a tremendous promoter the of these policies these are disproportionately based and i have been the biggest cheerleader because they are benefiting. so we have to look at the role that globalization played. and lastly washington is because the vast expansion of that neck and cranny of american life to benefit enormously from the wall

street bailout and a relaxed attitude in the wake of a the crash silicon valley has accomplished what it has because it has been given the exemption from what every other american industry has they just cannot come into your town like robert -- many businesses could not operate with those demographics of young white asian males like silicon valley. [laughter] so they just did not have to pay transactions ever some the benefited many of these cities and frankly that era of dominance over economic underperformance.

[laughter] [applause] >> now i feel i have been out contrarian. [laughter] >> i am not sure what to say. i will make a couple of comments. the and then talk about one of the questions that you raised from the original column to say whatever that concentration of facts of all the people working together to produce anemic growth and a follower said me a bunch of research arguing the fact that all things being equal there is increasing growth and

basically it is the argument that it couldn't open worse. four without these concentrations but i feel there is enough to adjudicate the case but there is enough work there but another thing that is worth raising that one of the fascinating things and they don't have an answer exactly but i wrote a book 10 years ago with that version of the book that we were talking about the future of the working class in the future of the heartland and one of the things we said obviously the internet's is going to be a

great mechanism for decentralization you will have lots of people who want to live in small midsized cities in the middle of america because housing is cheaper and the cost of living is lower and then they can telecommute or a piece of the company can be spun off to a different part of the country and that is fine because of the internet. that will enable physical dispersion with the contractive trend of the hyper educated. that just hasn't happened for all those working in the most internet enabled companies also want to be as close together as possible

so now in california that means living in the town it is interesting i think i don't have a full explanation but it is an interesting fact america in the age of the internet because you do have a circle people move to the sun belt were there is plenty of growth in atlanta and phoenix or these texans cities that our more family friendly but the hyper educated or the knowledge workers has done that in the companies they work for have not with the new economy has not disbursed there is an interesting so cute --

sociological story why that is i have not complete he figured out exactly. but that is part of the story the internet the radically could disperse us but has not exactly. >> challenge as. >> will challenge the defense that the suburbs are certainly growing. but they're also becoming more urban and as i was discussing before to be more open and one is to talk about new york city and

though large urban core or urbanism. so the new urban initiative has focused:repairing and showing so these booming texas cities established downtown to create that environment because that is what the market is demanding. even through american toting but -- voting but i also point of the anemic growth because there has been a barrage of studies who say

we have had the not - - economic growth precisely because of the cities to me they economic engine but even if one allows that economic growth to roll for word and then those cities with the zoning. so do you deregulate the city's? after all that is the free market position. >> if you have higher incomes available in the coastal cities that should draw people from around the country to want to come there but unfortunately those high wages are often offset by the high housing costs which makes it prohibitive so the coastal cities progressively are more easy to in character.

new york is still the center of the financial world but the finance industry is offloaded to places like charlotte, a salt lake city city, there is an article the other day about denver soaking up of finance jobs out of san francisco. so they are moving offshore or to the new sun belt and the urban areas as they become frozen due to regulations button to francisco you have to have special permission to build literally anything in the city. it would be a great advantage to build more and bring those prices down so people could enter but it is

hard to see how that happens politically in those places but a lot of people are a form of functional exclusion at least for the time being so that is what they do. second, a ton of people have bought houses and therefore that tremendous destruction of wealth with that highly price decline so anybody who has a condo or hold the property will fight tooth and nail in your destiny. regulatory red tape environment. so those dynamics all foster well for that kind of devepm concentration to the natural market forces.

>> but when you say break up the concentration so i unleashing of market forces that led bring jobs back from salt lake city and denver choose in francisco and new york to limit the concentration to bring the jobs that it brought back the or upper middle-class that were highly educated jobs you would have a concentration more economically efficient but not have that dispersive defect?. >> that is speculative maybe even be a diluted effect

these are the jobs that employ people who have families with of married middle-class family with children commuting from the suburbs and having those kinds of people with that diversity other they and the rich singles it is probably good for the of politics side-by-side working with people who were different. >> but what if those people become different people because they live in san francisco? that i want to start a family but i can afford to live here in a smaller important -- department so i get married a little later or have kids

later were not involved in side of the this is just a question with that north carolinian republicans but they were centrist democrats they would not be republicans so if they send their kids to the college's and universities and that is to fit in. you want to talk about

listening to npr of the way home with that mind set world view but i come from a long line of workers in new york they get live in manhattan for very long time but first of all, their with from manhattan to charlotte may be in the '70s you jersey city then touche charlotte but it was very hard to leave a middle-class family life in manhattan. but it seems with all the talk of how to revitalize

the major richer politician areas they begin with public schools. so that is extraordinarily selective if you make 130,000 and one to to raise a family that did say revolution so i don't see that happening. >> so did is similar to immigration radically transformed however they

change the culture of our country so is a two-way street and guided rita prospect for change but we are doomed of the high end people of those millennial type singles and to be held by the left because the demographics is because those demographics change

with that middle-class voter is gone. if that is gradually retreating population rise. >> we haven't done massless get in the game of questions from the audience. still appears to tracks and one is the global city and then the secondary like charlotte. but also to introduce how much more can we get there

is the decree of resignation of these larger cities so are their smaller cities that could develop as well to those new urban centers or the cultural?. >> as far as the first part of your question so a town that i know well and over

the last 34 years the liberal high minded suburb of new york. but he essentially with the journalist that everyone in publishing moves to manhattan. and is the for the secretaries but the al working journalist. but for those who remain employed.

a you could save the cancer has spread if you wanted with the elite to liberals and may sign goes to a fancy prep school and said we have to go to the south. but we spent some time. >> said is very new urban. because there really seems to be on the cusp of that is

up problem. so i am saying i do not know what they're doing. that is a much more interesting place but it is all just young people without kids. if it's not going to work in chattanooga then i don't know. but they could raise their kids and educate them. >> having lived in indianapolis downtown has

encountered some of the same revivals of chattanooga. was it childless?. >> with the city like indianapolis it is dramatically different but i look at how many people and it knew your credits a minority. it is a tremendous number of single people. some there are issues with urban schools but the primary population to a the

extent of the urban dense neighborhood committees are regions better shape to by married couples with children. but i know very eco conscious urban with the sensibility and a different sense of priorities so even people with a different political persuasion just bring a different conversation to this city. but if you travel to other cities you see a tremendous difference.

>> it doesn't seem that presence of kids inhibits our doesn't mean that you have that revitalization or that are engaged in that process. >> i have to do challenge you on all of them. they want to go saturday night and walk around that disneyland version. they are living in the suburbs. because that is where the schools are. they might want to live in that hip loft space over the coffee shop but not with

kids. so i am addressing a conservative audience you can draw distinctions but the people that are adhering to the family and religious values who are raising their kids in stable families it is those super talented urbanites so it is that group headed is adhering to family values it is much

stronger of those economic you leads -- elite. >> we have time for one last question. >> i am from a suburb of dallas texas i had never seen a dog the water fountain until alexandria. and she said that's a thing because they don't have kids but. [laughter] that elephant in the room is crime. talk about where they want to raise their kids to be sure when they're walking down the street nothing will happen to them. but it is a real point that

people want to have kids and raise kids are they will be safe. one that is decrease crime so what do you have to say to make cities livable? how are we arguing for more cops ?. >> and how to use of race and crime? [laughter] you are right there is the invasion in this is from personal experience to be on capitol hill hyatt the gentrified and highly educated neighborhood with

several good public schools never good after for there fifth grade as the parents with in and change the culture of the school and crime has gone down dramatically but there is still a lot of crime in capitol hill. our car was stolen and taken on a joyride bin alexandria with the cops called in said of the year going through items and do you all the brass knuckles? [laughter] there was a murder five blocks down from our house. i could go one that was not

the only factor that once we had children that was a factor in our decision that we now regret to move out of the city. you let your children play your let them roam that plays a big role in the dynamics but there is that sweet spot that you need that urban police force that is more nerve numerous and restraint that the left and

libertarian critique as white to urbanites move to reclaim the city with the worst case scenario but that is part of this tension to have the stock interest mentality that they feel the cops are doing these things but reading online that white people moved been down the street from me and started to call the cops for the bad is the reality with those issues in america and they're extremely difficult

to handle but there is of lots of data of police presence that is effectively put to use that as a do thank you could have of world with less crime that is imaginable from crime policy in the current climate it is harder to say but talk about the '50s and '60s with urban flight the role of crime gets bigger and bigger but even when the crime rates which are as low as any point in american history there still much higher than the suburbs and

they will take that into account to begin a neighborhood like the neighborhood be lifted now. and the zoo think we are making a mistake now say we move to crime haven. >> and they will not cease. briefly went to thank the american conservative for joining us. also those who have been appeared today if more is

more relevant. [applause]